DJ admits making up that coach driver was ‘angry and ready to leave’ prior to Northampton nightclub crush

Nick Spoors

A DJ working on the night of a fatal crush at a Northampton nightclub has admitted he made up the fact that coach drivers were fed up of waiting and were ready to leave students behind.

The jury hearing about events at Lava & ignite that led to the deaths of Nablila Nanfuka and Dani Jackson had already been told by bouncers and clubbers who claimed the announcements led to a huge number of people trying to leave the club at once on October 19, 2011.

David Osahon identified himself from announcements captured by police on the night saying that hotels were all booked up and that a coach driver was fed up “and ready to leave”. But he admitted that neither of those things were true.

He said: “It’s just to motivate people to leave. I would say nobody was making a move towards the door. There was just the same amount of people on the dance floor.”

Asked whether this was sensible, he said he believed people would have known he was joking.

He said: “I’m well-known on the university scene, I put on an African accent as a comedic persona. I understood that people would see it as a joke and not something very, very serious.”

The inquest has heard that a stationary mass of people waiting in the cloakroom area was joined by lots of people leaving the dancefloor in a short period.

People soon began to have trouble breathing and, after people in the crowd pushed from the back, some girls fell to the floor with people piling on top of them.

As a result, 28 people were injured including Nabila - who died shortly after the crush - and Dani - who died in hospital 17 days later.

Mr Osahon said he did not realise that, along with other DJs, 14 warnings telling people to get to their coaches were made in half an hour. For that number of announcements, Mr Osahon said, they should have been made over the course of an hour.

He also admitted seeing a crowd just outside the door but continued with the announcements but said he was constantly being urged by promoters to make them.

He said: “I’m more mature and understanding now. I would do things more differently now.”